The Lost Daughter

On her way home, Leda thinks about why she took Nani. The action is a mystery to her, but she convinces herself it came from a “spontaneous desire to help” (45): She took the doll to keep it safe and will return it first thing in the morning. However, the more she thinks about it, the surer Leda becomes that she took the doll out of malice. It was “unintentional but mean” (45), she decides as she watches a storm roll in and thinks about the distress she caused Elena. She examines Nani more closely. The doll is naked and heavy due to a belly filled with seawater.

Examining the doll reminds Leda of the doll she had loved as a child, which she called Mina. She remembers trying to play with her mother, using her as a doll, and how her mother had resisted. Determined not to become like her mother, Leda let her young daughters play with her however they liked. While baby Marta slept, little Bianca would brush Leda’s hair and pretend to give her medicine. Exhausted and overwhelmed by motherhood, Leda sometimes fell asleep, only to be woken by the pain of her daughter’s hands in her hair.